She sent the picture and some other information he gave her off to Sector Force headquarters right from the table. She got that done between the bread arriving and their salads.
Her only note with the picture was “We were wrong about Innocence Inc. and their involvement with Beacher. They didn’t protect him, they killed him. It all should be in Carson’s records as well if you dig deep enough.”
Then she relaxed into the wonderful dinner and conversation with the swirling blues and reds and oranges of the nebula out the window on one side and the forest of deep green and browns over and around them. Just the setting alone made her relax some.
The main course was a white fish native to a local nearby system sautéed in a light butter sauce with a side of sweet-tasting green stalks she had never seen or tried before. Light and tasty and perfect. It melted in her mouth. During the meal they talked about her being raised on Webber, the home planet for Sector Force Three. Then they talked about his parents and family.
She was surprised that for a rich family, they had seemed to be pretty normal. He had one younger sister who worked in the family business with his father.
She discovered, much to her relief, that he had no relationships at the moment, but had been close to marriage once. All he would say about it with a shrug of indifference was that it didn’t work out. And not working out had been a good thing for him.
To Mattie, he hadn’t seemed broken up about the memory of the relationship at all or maybe it was so far in the past he no longer cared.
That fact made her very happy. And when she caught herself thinking that, she shut the idea down. They were working together. They needed to keep it professional.
She had a hunch that wasn’t going to happen. Not the way she was feeling about him, and the way he clearly was feeling about her. As far as she was concerned, it was lucky they didn’t have wild sex right in the middle of the table in the restaurant.
That would have shocked the four security men trailing them.
She and Red talked about Carson after the main course while waiting for dessert. They both described how they had met Carson. Red seemed very interested about how she had met him and how she had admired and liked him a great deal. That made him smile fondly for some reason.
Finally, as they finished their dessert of a red berry cobbler covered in a white sweet sauce of some sort, Mattie got to the point about their coming mission. “From what you read of Carson’s research, how long do you think we have?”
Red ordered another bottle of wine, then turned his green eyes on her before answering. “A couple days at most. It depends on where these fleets of ships are located and what they are exactly.”
She nodded. “I’m hoping someone in Sector Force headquarters or DI has heard of them. Carson’s notes didn’t seem to shine any light on their possible location at all.”
“Only that they are a distance out of the sector, in the area called The Emptiness. But somehow Carson thinks they are headed inward, toward this sector and will be close enough to start attacks within two or three days.”
“Huge ships?” she asked.
He just shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe some sort of massive fleet. I have a hunch we’re going to find out soon enough.”
Mattie was grasping for anything that might help them at this point. It made no sense that if there was a fleet coming in from out of the depths of space, why worry about a single operative like Carson or try to destroy an organization like Sector Force.
Sector Force Three had remained completely non-political in all aspects of its work. And Mattie doubted if anyone at Sector Force much cared who ran which system in which sector and why.
And if they were coming in from that direction, where were they coming from? It was a very long distance to another sector across that emptiness.
Nothing about this seemed to make any sense at all. But it was her job to make sense of it.
She and Red shared another bottle of red wine and went back to small talk, trying to learn more about each other. Clearly he felt it was as important to their coming mission as she did. And he seemed sincerely interested in her background. So they talked of their favorite classes in school, hers being anything physical while he loved the sciences more.
“Where did you learn to fight?” she asked.
“Groff,” he said, casually.
She damn near spit out her mouthful of fine wine.
Groff was a city known for its training of the top martial arts and marksmen champions in the entire known universe.
She had trained on Groff as well. Many in the Sector Force did. If you couldn’t manage the training at any point in the two years, they sent you away. It was the hardest she had ever worked in her entire life. But it had turned her into a controlled and finely-tuned machine when she needed to be. But the key was the control it gave each person who graduated.
“When were you there?” she asked.
He told her which two years and she said, “We missed by a year. I was there the two years following you.”
Now it was his turn to be surprised. She enjoyed that look on his face.
“And I trained under a Groff master for a number of years in Sector Force headquarters as well to keep my skills toned.”
He tipped his glass in respect toward her and bowed slightly. “If we are to be fighting this fight together, it is always good to know another master is at your side.”
She tipped her glass and did the same shallow bow in return, showing her respect.
“I agree,” she said.
Suddenly she felt a lot better about working with Red. Groff masters were taught complete control in all dangerous situations. She had a hunch they were going to be facing some.
It also explained why he was so cool and collected in the firefight in the mall earlier.
They finished the last of the wine making more small talk before he said to her. “Would you like to get the data from Sector Force and meet in my suite? We can do our planning there. I have it swept and completely dampened from any possible spying.”
Her heart skipped and her stomach twisted slightly around the wonderful meal and wine. Could she trust herself to be alone in a suite with this man?
Did she dare do that?
The faint smile and his green eyes answered her question completely. She didn’t trust herself in the slightest, but at this point it didn’t matter. She was going to need to satisfy the other half of her appetite with this dangerous man before she would ever be able to focus completely on the coming task at hand.
And besides, if she was going to die in the next few days, she might as well die with a smile on her face.
CHAPTER SEVEN
RED COULD NOT BELIEVE he had invited Mattie up to his suite to work on the data. The woman was as dangerous as they came, both in sheer physical power and skills, but also dangerous to him because he just could not stop thinking about her.
He hadn’t felt that way about a woman since his fiancé left him nine years ago just as they got out of college. Sarina didn’t think he would ever amount to anything. She told him flat out, at the top of her voice, that he would always just coast on his family’s money.
And if she hadn’t left him like that, said all those hateful things, she might have been right.
Her leaving forced him to take another look at himself, to get into Groff for training in self-discipline. He and Carson had founded Innocence Inc. when he graduated from Groff knowing that innocent people were being framed and convicted and killed or imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit.
At one point he asked Carson to look up Sarina, see how she had ended up. She had married a low-level, but struggling businessman in the recycling business on their home planet. He was working his way up the corporate ladder, undoubtedly making Sarina happy with the struggle.
But now Mattie made him feel young again.
And really alive.
The attraction between them was real, of that he had no doubt. Somehow th
ey were going to have to deal with that aspect of working together. It was clear she was attracted to him as much as he was to her.
It was just too bad Carson was no longer with them to make fun of him. He had always said that Sarina wasn’t his match. Red wondered what Carson would think of him being with Mattie.
He shook away the image of Carson lying dead beside that planter and focused on the task at hand. He would deal with the grief of losing his friend later, when there was time to mourn. Right now he had work to do and Carson’s death to avenge.
He went to his link with his headquarters and downloaded everything they had sent. No one there had even heard of anything about a fleet of ships coming in from The Emptiness, but they were still searching. But there had been various reports of strange ships seeming to come into the sector from the direction of The Emptiness.
No one had thought that odd at all until he asked about it. There was still one ship docked in the spaceport of the Bodie Station that was of the design of ships known to come in from The Emptiness. More than likely the ship that had brought the group in that attacked them in the mall.
He made note of that to tell Mattie. They might find some clues on that ship of what they were facing if they could get in it. Or at least get the information from the ship the police had found. He was sure they would have searched it if they realized it was connected.
However, the security forces here at the station might not have put that together yet. In this sector so many people traveled in the big interstellar passenger ships.
Then Red went over the notes on Mattie Silks, the woman now heading toward his suite. She was considered the top agent in Sector Force Three, deadly and effective in just about any circumstance.
The people at his headquarters warned him away from her, saying she was far, far too deadly and too inside Sector Force way of life to trust in any fashion.
He didn’t trust her, but he wasn’t afraid of her. However, he was extremely attracted to her. More than he cared to admit. And if he had any hope of going up against the force that Carson seemed to think was coming into the sector, he needed the most deadly Sector Force enforcer there was at his side.
CHAPTER EIGHT
MATTIE HESITATED for just a moment outside the door to Suite 1290 and then knocked.
This was stupid. She felt like a schoolgirl with a crush about to do something that would get her in trouble.
The information Sector Force had sent about Red was complete and matched everything he had told her over their dinner. And it also linked him and Carson in the way Red had said.
Sector Force knew that Carson had been a founder of Innocence Inc. and been happy to have him join Sector Force. And they had known for over a year that Red and Innocence Inc. were not a threat in any way to Sector Force. In fact, the report said they had often been on the same side, especially with Carson working for Sector Force Three.
Red might not have known what organization Carson was working for, but people at Innocence Inc. did and funneled him information all the time. Mattie had a hunch that Red would either think that typical of his lost friend or be angry.
Chances are he would find it funny and yet be disappointed their friendship had dropped so far that Carson was afraid to tell him something.
No one in Sector Force headquarters had ever heard of anything about a fleet of ships approaching the sector, but they were still searching.
Red answered the door and smiled at her and then stepped back to allow her to come in. He had kicked off his shoes, rolled up his shirtsleeves, and clearly had been working on one couch in the gigantic suite.
Her heart raced as she stepped inside. No man should ever be allowed to be that attractive.
“Wow!” she said, walking in and looking around, trying to keep herself from staring at him. “I thought my suite was huge. This dwarfs it.”
He laughed and dropped onto the couch and picked up his data pad again. “Take a look at the indoor pool under the stars and nebula. It’s a stunner.”
He gestured for her to move up past the hot tub.
She did, trying to give herself a moment to calm down. The full-sized pool was stunning as he had suggested and all she could do was imagine herself swimming nude in it with him watching.
She was having a hard time even catching her breath. She tried to shake her head to clear it, but it didn’t work. Before either of them were going to get any work done at all, this attraction had to be satisfied.
“The water warm in the pool?” she asked, sliding open the large glass door that led from the suite out to the indoor private pool. The smell of the pool and the plants surrounding it hit her like she had walked into a thick, rich garden.
“It’s supposed to be,” he said, studying something in front of him. “I haven’t been here long enough to test it yet.”
“Any of your people know anything about that fleet of ships?” she asked, standing half in the doorway to the pool, half in the suite.
He shook his head. “Not a clue,” he said. “But they are still searching.”
“Sector Force researchers are doing the same,” she said.
She took a deep breath of the moist pool area and then looked at the back of Red where he sat on the couch, his long dark hair tied back. They could keep playing this sex game or they could resolve it now and then get to work. Clearly he had no more leads at the moment than she had, so they had time.
She kicked off her shoes and left them just inside the suite on the thick, rich brown carpet. Then she moved out closer to the large indoor pool, leaving the door to the suite wide open.
The bright oranges and reds and blues of the nebula seemed to almost surround the pool, draping over the sky like a giant bright curtain over a window, making her feel like she was standing in space. Thousands of bright stars lit up the rest of the sky around it.
It was stunning.
One of the most beautiful sights she had ever seen in a life full of traveling many sectors of space.
She stood for a long moment, staring upward at the colors and the stars, her stomach twisting like she was a teenager back on her first date. What happened if he wasn’t interested in her?
Or rejected her advances?
She shook that thought away and slipped out of the dress jacket she wore at dinner, placing it over a table on the deck beside the pool.
Then she took out her gun and laid it on her jacket.
He still hadn’t turned around, so she slipped out of her slacks and underwear, then her blouse and bra, standing there naked on the pool deck.
Talk about feeling totally free.
She had never felt anything like this before, naked under the bright oranges and blues and greens of the curtain nebula and all the stars behind it and around it.
She moved over to the edge of the pool, then with a quick shallow dive sliced the water perfectly, coming up near the other side.
Floating in the water with space all around her was not a feeling she had ever imagined before.
It was magical.
Beyond magical.
Dreamlike.
She swam on her back, leisurely kicking and stroking toward the other end of the pool while staring up at the sky and the bright colors.
As she neared the edge of the pool she could see Red’s tall figure and smiling face standing on the edge, towering over her.
“This is amazing,” she said, her voice far more breathy and light than she had imagined it could be.
“So are you,” he said.
She reached the edge, turned over and pushed herself up easily out of the water right in front of him.
Then she simply reached up and pulled that handsome face down to hers and kissed him like she had never kissed anyone before.
And he kissed her back harder and more intensely than she had ever been kissed before.
CHAPTER NINE
AFTER THAT FIRST intense and wonderful kiss, Mattie pushed back from him, turned and did a shallow dive back into the
pool. Luckily it was a shallow dive, because she had very little breath left in her after that amazing kiss.
Wow, that man could kiss. Their lips had seemed to fit perfectly together and he had tasted wonderful, like light cinnamon.
No man was supposed to taste of light cinnamon.
She surfaced and turned toward him, smiling, brushing the water back from her face.
“I’d take those clothes off,” she said, standing in the shallow water so that he could see her breasts. “And put that gun over on a table unless you plan on spending a few hours drying it and cleaning it. Because those clothes are coming off you, mister, and you are getting wet very quickly, one way or another.”
He laughed, a sound that echoed over the water, a sound that seemed magical under the stars and the beautiful colors overhead.
Her heart was racing so fast, she could barely keep herself under control. She had no memory of ever experiencing this kind of intense hunger and longing for a man.
But somehow she managed to just stand there in the water, pretending to be calm, watching him.
He took too steps to the table with her clothes on it, put his gun beside hers, then unbuttoned and pulled off his shirt.
Again she was suddenly short of breath.
How was that possible? He looked better without a shirt on than he did with one. Not many men she had ever seen were that way.
Under the stars his skin seemed to almost ripple. She wanted to get to know every inch of that skin. Kiss and stroke it all.
He slipped out of his slacks and underwear and turned to face her. He was clearly as aroused as she felt and everything about him was proportioned.
Everything.
She felt like she might never breathe again. She couldn’t say anything even if she had wanted to.
He took two quick steps and did a shallow dive into the pool, coming up almost immediately in front of her.
She wrapped her arms over his shoulders and around his neck and he stood in the shallow pool, pulling her up with him.
Sector Justice Page 4
